Personalities Shine Through

The girls practiced their spelling words on the refrigerator with magnet letters yesterday. Abi went first and I had suggested that we arrange the magnet letters on the floor in alphabetical order. She responded "Oh no, color order is much better," and proceeded to arrange them in color order. She happily spelled each word I gave her and used her "scope" to find each letter as seen below.
Emma did her list second and as you can see she prefers no order what so ever to most things in life. Also, spelling is always much better done with a ballet slipper on your hand, your hair in your face and a ballet leotard on your body (better than the naked we were dealing with this morning). I was in the living room reading with Abi while she was working on her list and I could hear her talking while she was spelling so I came to check on her. As she needed a letter she would call out "N, can you please come to the front. N to the front please. You are needed next." Or something rather similar. For each letter. I love her creative mind (most days).
This is just a small sampling of their personalities showing through. If I am asked why we home school, I almost always answer that it is mainly because we do not want them to lose their love of learning. I am trying, as much as possible to honor their personalities and learning styles and help them to grow up accepting who they are. Some days that is easier than others.

Facial Expressions

One of the first trips to the park this Spring and I actually brought my camera. I was using the drive mode to take multiple pictures back to back thinking I would just get some cute shots. Instead I found myself laughing at the facial expressions that my kids and husband were making while playing intensely. These are my favorites.

Playing in the Dirt

Trying to make it feel more like spring, we planted Rye Grass Seeds (couldn't find wheat grass seeds, but this should work). These little pots are on the dining room window ledge which is quite sunny. I will post an update next week when they start to sprout.
I didn't want to be left out of the fun, so I took some of my little glass jars on the kitchen window ledge and filled them with dirt and seeds too.
We have been working more and more on independence, and they are coming along quite well. I know it is a good thing, but seeing them doing things for themselves makes me wonder what happened to my babies.

We can always count on Emma for a laugh. She dug a hole and shoved her head in it... "just like my cousin Buck." (Buck is my sister Mandy's dog... Emma and Abi's ONLY "cousin").

Photos to make you smile

We found this tomato in our garden. He has a nose and hair! God has a strange sense of humor.


Not a lot of lovely things to say right now. It has been a hard week. Emma had another seizure and I had to take Abi to the doctor today (nothing serious, but still). We have had some loveliness that we have taken pictures of and I cling to the little things that make me smile.

Bird Watching

The front view of the new house. I love it!

I noticed some bird nests this morning on the top of the corner posts of the big front porch.

There is a finch family on one post and a mourning dove family on the other. The papa mourning dove is stupid evidently and flew to the wrong nest where he was quite quickly and effectively attacked by both mama and papa finch. He finally realized that he was wrong and flew to the other post where mama mourning dove appeared to be in the middle of laying her eggs. He immediately started pecking at her and seemed to just be annoying her. The girls were watching part of all of these antics with me. At lunch, I was telling Curt about the silly birds and I got to the part where the papa mourning dove was pecking at the mama (annoying her) and Emma speaks up and says..."I don't think he was pecking her, I think he was helping make the hole where the eggs come out of her a little bigger." While she is saying this she is picking up one "cheek" and pointing down there. I laughed so hard I cried and Emma says, "What? I am pretty sure that is what he was doing."

Keeping me Sane

Lovely things keeping me sane in the process of moving...
1. PRAYER... Lots of it!
2. SPRING... 2 times we have moved in the winter, I much prefer this. I have windows open and sun and warm and things sprouting (although I am quite sad to leave my gardens... good thing the house we are buying is only 6 blocks from where we currently live and I will be able to come back and split some of my plants).
3. Supportive friends and family. Thank you all for your help and hugs and encouragement.
4. As usual, my funny children. I paused in packing to look out the window and see this...


I am not sure what the arm floaties are protecting them from, but at least they are safe and brought a smile to this mom's face. :)

Entomologist/Safari Leader/Paleontologist/Artist

Emma Painting

Abi Painting

For almost 2 years now, Emma (age five and three quarters) has said that she wants to be an Entomologist when she grows up. At first I think she was just enjoying saying a large word (she has always liked big words), but then she enjoyed the reaction she got from adults when she would say Entomologist. Her new thing has been that she wants to be an Entomologist/Safari Leader and she says the slash, which is too funny. Last week she added another slash and says she wants to be an Entomologist/Safari Leader/Paleontologist and now today we added /Artist. This will be further known as E/SL/P/A. The "slashes" are very important. Of course little sister wants to be the same thing. It is much colder outside today than it was earlier this week, but they needed some fresh air, so I sent them outside. They dug out the easel and wanted to paint because "if we are going to be a E/SL/P/A then we need lots of practice." They are pictured above painting such creations as meteors hitting the dinosaurs. So cute and so creative.

Turtles

This week in home school land, we are talking about Dr. Suess and reading lots and lots of Suess books as last Friday was his birthday and I like to be all themey like that. Today we read Yertle the Turtle. If you are not in the know, this is a story about a turtle king named Yertle, who gets a little big for his turtle britches and decides he would like to see more of the world than his little stone throne allows. So he orders is turtle subjects to stack themselves and he climbs on top of the stack to enjoy the view. This is all well and good until a little turtle on the bottom named Mack decides to complain. This gets him nowhere so he BURPS (I kid you not, that is what the book says, and I cannot tell you how happy Emma was to read that word) and the whole stack tumbles. Yertle lands in the mud and Mack gets to be king and "all the turtles are free as all creatures should be." We enjoyed the book together and then made our own stackable turtles out of paper plates and construction paper heads and feet all stapled together cute like. Pure joy working on them together and taking turns with each little job. My favorite part of the whole process was when the girls decided that all the turtles needed names. These include such creative beauties as Wee-Woo (not to be confused with Woo-Wee), Universal, American, Swirls and Stripes and Zig-Zag. But my all time favorites have to be Darth Vader, C3PO, and R2D2 because as Emma says "ya gotta have a little Star Wars in there." True indeed.


Abi stacking turtles.


Emma stacking turtles.


Our stack of 20 turtles. After this great accomplishment, we yelled "burp" and knocked them down, laughed a lot, and then did it all again. Such fun.


Our little family of turtles. I want to show a close up of each, but you will have to settle for the group.


This cute little guy is named Darth Vader. :)